Because viability and usage are two different things. There's a certain amount of inertia for a pokemon to stay in its tier; Scrafty is currently in UU, so if you want to use Scrafty you have to use him in UU, which only increases his UU usage and prevents him from falling to RU. Combined with the Pokemon Showdown teambuilder listing pokemon by tier, thus making people overlook better pokemon from lower tiers, and this can lead to pokemon staying in tiers they really have no business being in.

The usage stats determining tier shifts are the 1760 ones (and the 1695 in OU), right? I may be mistaken, but I once read the decision was made to use those stats some time ago. It's just to prevent confusion and spark some interesting discussion that I'm asking.

A lot of people post predictions stating "Pokemon X will probably drop" or "Pokemon Y should rise this month". With two months worth of usage data, couldn't you determine what usage threshold each pokemon in their respectively tiers would need to either stay in that tier or drop (likewise rising into other tiers)?

A lot of people post predictions stating "Pokemon X will probably drop" or "Pokemon Y should rise this month". With two months worth of usage data, couldn't you determine what usage threshold each pokemon in their respectively tiers would need to either stay in that tier or drop (likewise rising into other tiers)?

Because viability and usage are two different things. There's a certain amount of inertia for a pokemon to stay in its tier; Scrafty is currently in UU, so if you want to use Scrafty you have to use him in UU, which only increases his UU usage and prevents him from falling to RU. Combined with the Pokemon Showdown teambuilder listing pokemon by tier, thus making people overlook better pokemon from lower tiers, and this can lead to pokemon staying in tiers they really have no business being in.

I wonder if there would be a way to measure this level of inertia in a given tier using the stats from each month? The number of drops and rising between each tier would be a crude way, but possibly something that percentage-change for the usage of each mon in a given tier month-to-month, and averaging this change across all mons in the tier, would give a better picture.

Why in hell is this Pokemon seeing any usage in Doubles at all, let alone sitting in the top fucking thirty?! This is a poor fucking excuse for a dragon type and a Pokemon, yet it's used more than Latios and Hydreigon and Kyurem-Fucking-Black. As opposed to the other Pokemon i listed, which have their role on certain teams and are just massively overused, i cannot think of a single team in the history of generation six doubles over used which is made better by the addition of this ugly yellow sack of shit. And remember, UU/RU run on 1630 stats but Doubles is 1695 stats—one and a half standard deviations above average. One and a half standard deviations above average is only the top ~8%! The fact that this Pokemon is not only OU but solidly OU even with such heavy weighting makes me feel like I've failed as a tier leader.

I see through the lies of the jedi

Why in hell is this Pokemon seeing any usage in Doubles at all, let alone sitting in the top fucking thirty?! This is a poor fucking excuse for a dragon type and a Pokemon, yet it's used more than Latios and Kyurem-Fucking-Black. As opposed to the other Pokemon i listed, which have their role on certain teams and are just massively overused, i cannot think of a single team in the history of generation six doubles over used which is made better by the addition of this ugly yellow sack of shit. And remember, UU/RU run on 1630 stats but Doubles is 1695 stats—one and a half standard deviations above average. One and a half standard deviations above average is only the top ~8%! The fact that this Pokemon is not only OU but solidly OU even with such heavy weighting makes me feel like I've failed as a tier leader.

but seriously though, doubles ladder usage stats are the reason the ladder gets literally no respect in the doubles community. Great way to learn doubles mechanics & the basics but other than that you're gonna have to get involved in the tournament scene if you want to get anywhere

TerraCott is one of those gimmicks that can actually work, partially because you don't have to run a shitty set on Terrakion and let it function if you can't pull of the gimmick (there's even a Smog article somewhere about "good" gimmicks that mentions it). It doesn't deserve that much usage, but its not worthless like Dragonite.

Explorer

TerraCott is one of those gimmicks that can actually work, partially because you don't have to run a shitty set on Terrakion and let it function if you can't pull of the gimmick (there's even a Smog article somewhere about "good" gimmicks that mentions it). It doesn't deserve that much usage, but its not worthless like Dragonite.

IK it isn't. It was just sopposed to be a little bit of humour before the main purpose of the post (i.e. to state that Whimsicott itself isn't that good). I remember that article well: it had ScarfZor/Champ under bad gimmicks and (if I remember correctly) Whitney's Miltank under ugly gimmicks.

their hearts don't beat like ours

TerraCott isn't horrible; the problem is that everyone bases their entire fuckin team around it as a wincon and considering how easy this strategy is to recognize and stop, it often just falls flat on face. Whimsicott is sucky tho I agree it doesn't deserve that much usage